Savage News

by Jessica Yellin

  As the door closed behind her, she could have sworn she heard laughing.

  13

  The Best if not the Brightest

  Matt met her by the ground floor elevators, looking like a nervous stage mom waiting for her toddler beauty queen.

  “You’ve seen the tape?” he demanded.

  Natalie walked past him into the elevator. “Can you be helpful and tell me which studio I’m in?”

  “Studio A,” he said, scurrying in next to her. “We’ve got to make sure you own this story. It’s huge. Tell me you’ve seen the tape?”

  Yes, she had on the cab ride over. And though she would avoid saying the words to his face, Matt was right. It was going to be huge. Incontrovertible evidence of the First Lady getting intimate with a very handsome—and unidentified—man. It was black-and-white surveillance footage in three parts. The first part showed the First Lady and Mystery Hunk sitting on a couch eating popcorn together. The second was the two of them in a bedroom, FLOTUS wearing only a bathrobe receiving a kiss on the forehead from Mystery Hunk before allowing him to hug her, tenderly. The last part of the tape showed two figures throwing handfuls of leaves at one another in a garden. Notably there was no mole on the First Lady’s neck in any of the shots. This video was new.

  “They are so clearly doing it,” Matt said enthusiastically as the elevator reached their floor. “Days like this I fucking love the job.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, leaving the elevator and walking fast down the hallway so he had to jog to keep up. “The video is surprising. Provocative. Train-wreck-un-look-away-able. But it’s not proof that the First Lady is doing it with someone else. There’s nothing explicitly sexual in it at all.”

  “Great, go with that,” Matt said. “That should be your on-air posture. While everyone else is hyperventilating about FLOTUS the floozy and shouting sex, sex, sex, you can play Miss Goody Two-shoes, the voice of reason. No sex to see here,” he said, imitating her voice. They reached the big door marked Studio A. “It’s the one position I’m confident you can sell.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m simply suggesting you play to your strengths. The world’s last thirty-two-year-old virgin.”

  “I am not—”

  “Shhh, save it for the show,” he said, pushing her through the door.

  * * *

  Inside the studio, the air-conditioning hit her like a polar blast. A stagehand wearing an orange parka, ski hat, and gloves greeted her, his breath forming a fog cloud as he spoke. He ushered her toward a half-moon set surrounded by seven robotic cameras on wheels. There were two other production assistants, one wrapped in a Snuggie, the other wearing camouflage survival gear and snow boots.

  Natalie found Heath Heatherton sitting behind his desk, bobbing his head to his Bose headphones like a prizefighter, studying a stack of blue notecards.

  She stilled for a moment. This was the first time she’d seen ATN’s top anchor in the flesh.

  “Natalie Savage! Welcome to Heath’s show,” he boomed, not bothering to remove his headphones. “Great job out there!”

  She wasn’t sure to which “great job” he was referring but she smiled and said, “Thank you so much. A pleasure to be on with you,” as she allowed herself to be led to a stool behind the desk.

  In his seven years of national fame, Heath Heatherton had adopted and shed a number of identities. Just forty-one years old, he’d already written three best-selling autobiographies. The first, From Nothing, was his up-by-the-bootstraps story of growing up “Greenwich poor,” the son of two midlevel corporate lawyers coming of age in a world of hedge fund families. Next came Man-o-Rexic, a revealing look at his fight to maintain 3 percent body fat through a lean protein and vegetable diet which triggered a years-long struggle with body dysmorphia. In his latest, All of the Above, Heath claimed either a genetic or emotional identification with every racial and religious group and sexual orientation recognized by the US Census Bureau. “I’m an intersex, Judeo-Christian, Islamo-Buddhist, descended from every race on earth,” he’d enthused, insisting his multifaceted identity enabled him to empathize with a wide array of guests and news stories. “When I’m with an interview subject, I sometimes become that subject.”

  Critics eviscerated his anchor involvement style of reporting as “an extreme distillation of the narcissism of the TV age.” One New York Times columnist summarized his show this way: “Coming up next, more about me.” But he made for great TV. And thanks to his ratings, Heath had almost unchecked power to do what he wanted on his show.

  Seated in such proximity to the great anchor, Natalie did her best to stare at her hands and not at the star while a stagehand untucked her shirt and ran his cold fingers and a microphone up it. The cold fingers stopped at her breasts and clipped the microphone onto the shirt fabric then reached around to repeat the procedure with her earpiece up her back. When the stagehand finished, Natalie retucked her shirt and, glancing down, did up an extra button on top just to be sure there was no cleavage showing. She smiled at Heath but he seemed to be studying his notecards too intently to notice.

  “Five minutes to air!” someone shouted.

  “We have the video, right, guys? Any ID on the man?” Heath said, talking to the people in the control room. Natalie could not hear their reply.

  “Great. And how do you want to play this?” Heath paused. “Mmm-hmm. Natalie. Right. Great. Great.” He looked up and smiled at her again.

  On TV, Heath was heart-meltingly alluring, handsome with big eyes, a round childlike face, and the honey-colored skin of a Brazilian model. But Natalie observed that seeing him in person was like standing in front of one of these heat-free TV lights—sunny glow but eerily lacking in warmth.

  The door slammed open and Ryan McGreavy bounded into the studio and vaulted onto a stool between Natalie and Heath like a pro gymnast.

  “Not late after all!” Ryan declared to the room, then turning to Heath, enthused, “Killer video.”

  “Totally!” Heath replied. “We’re gonna crush it!”

  Natalie watched as the two men high-fived one another.

  She fidgeted in her chair and wondered if she should make some kind of sporty noise, too.

  “Whoop, whoop,” she mumbled, trying to mimic their enthusiasm.

  “Three minutes to air!” a voice shouted.

  Ryan pointed at a monitor where Jazzmyn Maine, the morning anchor, was live on air, sparkling like a brilliant-cut diamond. As always, Natalie was struck by Jazzmyn’s allure. With her big blue eyes, bright blond hair, and chest-baring blouse, Jazzmyn was mesmerizing, even on mute—scratch that, especially on mute.

  “She really pops on camera,” Ryan said worshipfully. Natalie looked up to see both Ryan and the stage manager staring at Jazzmyn’s image on the TV, as though they’d become the subject of a secret Illuminati mind control exercise.

  “Mmm-hmm,” one of the guys on set murmured.

  Jazzmyn’s show went to break and, mind control shattered, Ryan proclaimed, “I hear she’s into threesomes.” Abruptly he swiveled to face Heath. “Did two guys on the Judiciary Committee staff. It’s all over Capitol Hill.”

  “Really?” Heath mumbled without looking up from his notecards while Natalie started fidgeting in her seat, suddenly intensely aware that she was alone with five men.

  Ryan pressed on confidently. “I know a guy from her last station. And they say she’s into group sex.” He paused for a reaction but Heath, still studying his notecards, merely frowned whether in disbelief or disapproval Natalie couldn’t tell.

  “Ryan,” Natalie began, feeling duty bound to speak up on behalf of another woman, “that’s uncool of you to say.”

  “I don’t know. I think it’s cool,” said the stagehand who’d no doubt had his cold hands up Jazzmyn’s shirt, too.

  “That mental image will keep
me warm at night,” a voice from the control room added in Natalie’s ear.

  “Hey,” Ryan said, putting up his hands. “Just repeating what I heard.” It took all Natalie’s willpower to stay quiet. This was not the time to pick a fight, especially not about the Hefner-at-home vibe in the room. She had to be focused and ready for air.

  The seconds stretched on in silence until someone on the floor yelled, “One minute to air!”

  Natalie inhaled sharply then exhaled, giving a fluff to her drowned-rat hair with one hand and smoothing out her blouse with the other.

  Heath had started making big movements with his mouth, like he was warming up his lip muscles. Ryan, watching him, started doing the same. When Heath moved from making big OOs to EEs, Ryan stopped to wipe away drool that was pooling at the corners of his mouth.

  “We’re live in 15...10...5, 4, 3, 2...”

  The stage manager pointed at Heath, whose face transformed into a stunning smile. “Hello, world. It’s 11 a.m. on the East Coast, 8 a.m. on the West Coast. Welcome to a special edition of Big Politics with Heath Heatherton.”

  Heath was live on monitors on every surface in the studio. He turned to look at a second camera, which afforded viewers an extreme close-up of his pretty honey-toned face.

  “The hidden camera video you’re about to see gives us rare insight into the private lives of our leaders. It’s about lust. Betrayal. Duty. Freedom. A story older than time.”

  Natalie checked the teleprompter. It did, in fact, say “older than time.”

  Was it possible for a thing to be older than time? she wondered, then realized that in a world where the boss could arrive in a ray of light, questions like that were just childish. Who was to say that time didn’t have an older sister or maybe a cousin?

  The teleprompter read “pause for graphic,” which Heath did. The screen exploded into the tiny red and green shards from which the words ONLY ON ATN came bursting forth, followed by the video. Heath provided voice-over narration, which included the phrases “treasonous love” and “way hotter than the president.”

  The video rolled and as Natalie watched it for the second time, she tried to discern if the two people in the video seemed to be sleeping together. FLOTUS looked more relaxed than Natalie had previously seen her. Hair down loose, she seemed soft and vulnerable. Which suggested an affair, but didn’t prove it.

  When the show came back from tape, Natalie saw the shot of herself on set next to Heath and Ryan, in a monitor out of the corner of her eye. A thrill of excitement shimmered through her. For the first time it felt real. She was “live, in studio” for Big Politics with Heath Heatherton. Her heart started to pound so fast she was sure the microphones could pick it up. This is making it.

  She couldn’t wait to tell Sarah.

  Heath turned to his right. “Ryan McGreavy, fresh from the Colombian embassy where you broke the news about Rigo Lystra. Tell us—the First Lady of the United States and another man. What do we have here?”

  “What we have here is a shameful, un-American betrayal.” Ryan was somber. “There is nothing acceptable about committing adultery against the White House. Mrs. Crusoe has a solemn duty to be faithful. She’s violated her vows to her husband and to America. And there will be consequences.”

  Natalie was staring at Ryan, dumbfounded. What kind of consequences? Does he think it’s unconstitutional to cheat on the president?

  She was sure Heath would make Ryan clarify himself. Instead, the anchor nodded gravely and tossed the ball her way. “Natalie?”

  “I think we need to be cautious,” Natalie said, trying to sound energetic and NOW! while also not sounding too alarmed. “The video is provocative. It raises many questions. But we can’t tell the nature of the relationship between the First Lady and that man. Surely we can reach a consens—”

  She stopped herself before uttering the word consensus, recalling in the nick of time that it was one of the Chief’s Forbidden Words.

  She started again. “Surely we can agree that this is hardly a sex tape—”

  “Disagree,” Ryan declared, interrupting her.

  “Sorry?” She frowned at Ryan, startled.

  “It’s a sex tape. That’s clear as day,” Ryan said.

  Natalie looked from Ryan to Heath and back. Was he really denying the sexlessness of the tape?

  “Don’t you need sex for it to be a sex tape?” she asked.

  Heath clapped his hands, enthusiastically. “Love it. This is a he-said, she-said live in studio!” He beamed. “How’s this? What if we call it a caught-red-handed tape? Or a smoking-gun tape?”

  “I like that, a smoking-gun tape,” Ryan said, swiveling to face Heath. “I’m not saying that cheating on the president is necessarily treason. But it makes you wonder why we can’t impeach a First Lady.”

  It does? “Because the First Lady is not an elected office,” Natalie said with more edge in her voice than she’d intended. The two men raised their eyebrows and looked at one another sharing some kind of silent language. Natalie felt her stomach knot.

  Down, girl, she berated herself. No one likes a scold.

  Just then a voice crackled in Natalie’s ear. “Hey, can you unbutton your shirt?”

  Natalie froze, trying to figure out if someone had accidentally keyed into the person’s wrong earpiece.

  No way that’s meant for me.

  The voice continued, “Don’t say anything, you’re on camera. But the Chief called and thinks you’re too buttoned-up.” There was a pause and Natalie remained still. “We’ll switch to a solo shot of the boys, if you can just unbutton your blouse one button?”

  Wrong again.

  Natalie flicked her eyes over to the live-to-air monitor, which showed that she was indeed out of the shot.

  “Of course I meant that symbolically, not literally,” Ryan was saying. “When my dad was governor, my mom understood that she had to play hostess. It’s part of the deal.” With a sinking feeling in her stomach and a rising blush, she undid one button and looked down to confirm nothing was showing. Close, but still PG.

  “That’s great. Great,” the voice said in her ear as Natalie imagined the entire control room staring at her chest in the wall of monitors.

  No biggie, she told herself. Not like you’re doing a live shot in a bikini.

  “You know what this brings to mind, Heath? It reminds me of what’s going on with my friend Rigo Lystra, over at the Colombian Embassy,” Ryan was saying emphatically. He was facing Heath, his back turned to Natalie. “I’ve been on the phone with him again today and he says what bothers him most is the betrayal. The deliberate attempt to humiliate him and ruin his reputation for no reason. And how willing the public is to go along with it. I imagine the president has similar feelings.”

  Now he’s comparing the president to a child playboy accused of rape? Surely Heath will point out that Ryan’s case is packed with nuts.

  “Interesting point,” Heath said, nodding meaningfully, not doing any pointing out at all. “Natalie, let’s do a hypothetical. If you were First Lady and unhappy in your marriage, would you consider it acceptable to step out on the president with another man?”

  Natalie looked around with some desperation. Seriously, was no one going to stop this? It was like being inside one of those dreams where the stairs turn into a lake and then you have no teeth, and when you try to fly, all your friends start cackling and then you wake up relieved to be in your own bed in a world that made sense. Only she was already awake.

  “I’m not entirely comfortable with that hypothetical,” Natalie said, summoning all her will to make sure her voice sounded demure. “Just a few days ago a doctored photo of the First Lady became big news.”

  Wait, am I allowed to say a few days ago? She panicked. Or, like yesterday, is that phrase forbidden?

  “Again I’m talking about brand-new, just-in-
now video of the First Lady,” Natalie said, forgoing clarity in the name of pleasing the Chief. “For all we know, it’s doctored, too, and—”

  “That’s a reach.” Ryan was frowning. “Why are you working so hard to protect the First Lady?”

  Flummoxed, she replied, “I’m not. I’m just—”

  Ryan interrupted again. “Heath, I think the press tries to protect the First Family. No offense, Natalie.” Turning his back to her, he swiveled to face Heath. “What you’re hearing from Natalie now is typical Washington speak. She wants you to doubt what you see with your own two eyes. I say we trust the people to know.”

  Natalie looked at Ryan, or rather his back, wishing brains could maim. “No, I’m saying we should verify—”

  “Oh like we’re the information police? Why should we decide what people see?” Ryan interrupted, craning his neck to glance at her.

  Natalie’s fingers curled into fists. “No, like journalists. Otherwise we’re just the internet. It’s our job—”

  “Down, guys, down,” Heath cut her off, making let’s-get-calm gestures with his hands. “You both make important points.” He looked to Ryan. “We have a responsibility to speak truth to power, even when it will upset people in power.” He turned to Natalie. “And we have a responsibility to verify what we report.” Finally he turned to one of the robotic cameras. “As a journalist, I won’t back down. I’m going to do my job. And no one in power will stop me.” He continued looking into the camera, with a smoldering intensity.

  In her ear Natalie could hear, “Hard out in five!”

  Ryan broke the silence. “Heath, fearless journalism is the best journalism.”

  “Four, three, two,” the voice in her ear said.

  “Amen,” Heath said with a satisfied smile.

  The show cut to commercial.

  * * *

  When the lights went off, Heath high-fived Ryan and made a shooting gun gesture to Natalie.

  “Great job, guys! Loved the conflict. You’re like the Bickersons!” he said, putting on the Bose headphones and picking up another stack of blue cards for his next segment.